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Sunday, February 10, 2013

Trading It In

Running brings all of your truths to the surface. Good and bad. Banal and profound. I have to poop, is right up there in the front of your mind along with, What would it feel like to feel like I am enough?

Two miles or twelve, high tech tights or Target shorts - if you put on your shoes, if you open the door, if you take the first step, you have begun.

Like a lot of things in life, running can be super exciting and filled with the encouragement and accolades of others near the beginning - and the end. It's the middle that gets lonely. The getting up early, the running when it's dark, the being so bad at something, so shockingly and terrifically awful that it takes you literal months to get to the point where you don't want to die every time you head out the door. That part sucks. Oh, but that's where all the magic happens.

Because I would never have gotten here if I hadn't been there. I am not a great runner. I don't run every day. I don't break records or win medals. But several months ago, I traded in numbers on a scale for numbers on the road.

And though it would make me infinitely happy to say that in the end, the scale said what I wanted it to because of the running - nope, didn't happen. I still don't always like what I see in the mirror, or what I see on the scale.

But I sure do love how it feels to be here.
And for now (and hopefully for a lot longer than that), that is enough.

The Author

New Haven, new life. Yale Nursing School is my reality now, and will be for the next three years. Three short years, and I'll be a certified nurse-midwife. Spending my days brewing coffee, highlighting in yellow, making friends, and trying to be brave.